Wherein the moralist designed
  A compliment on human kind;
  For here he owns, that now and then
  Beasts may degenerate into men.

  FROM VERSES ON THE DEATH OF DR. SWIFT

  Vain human kind! fantastic race! 
Thy various follies who can trace? 
Self-love, ambition, envy, pride,
  Their empire in our hearts divide. 
  Give others riches, power, and station,
  ’Tis all on me a usurpation. 
  I have no title to aspire;
  Yet, when you sink, I seem the higher. 
  In Pope I cannot read a line
  But with a sigh I wish it mine;
  When he can in one couplet fix
  More sense than I can do in six,
  It gives me such a jealous fit I cry,
  ‘Pox take him and his wit!’
  I grieve to be outdone by Gay
  In my own humorous biting way. 
  Arbuthnot is no more my friend,
   Who dares to irony pretend,
  Which I was born to introduce,
  Refined it first, and showed its use. 
  St. John, as well as Pultney, knows,
  That I had some repute for prose;
  And, till they drove me out of date,
  Could maul a minister of state. 
  If they have mortified my pride,
  And made me throw my pen aside: 
  If with such talents Heaven has blessed ’em,
  Have I not reason to detest ’em?

* * * * *

  Suppose me dead; and then suppose
  A club assembled at the Rose;
  Where, from discourse of this and that,
  I grow the subject of their chat.

  And while they toss my name about,
  With favour some, and some without,
  One, quite indifferent in the cause,
  My character impartial draws: 

  ’The Dean, if we believe report,
  Was never ill-received at court. 
  As for his works in verse and prose,
  I own myself no judge of those;
  Nor can I tell what critics thought ’em,
  But this I know, all people bought ’em,
  As with a moral view designed
  To cure the vices of mankind,
  His vein, ironically grave,
  Exposed the fool, and lashed the knave. 
  To steal a hint was never known,
  But what he writ was all his own.

  ’He never thought an honour done him,
  Because a duke was proud to own him;
  Would rather slip aside and choose
  To talk with wits in dirty shoes;
  Despised the fools with stars and garters,
  So often seen caressing Chartres. 
  He never courted men in station,
  Nor persons held in admiration;
  Of no man’s greatness was afraid,
  Because he sought for no man’s aid. 
  Though trusted long in great affairs,
  He gave himself no haughty airs. 
  Without regarding private ends. 
  Spent all his credit for his friends;
  And only chose the wise and good;
  No flatterers; no allies in blood: 
  But succoured virtue in distress,
  And seldom failed of good success;
  As numbers in their hearts must own,
  Who, but for him, had been unknown.